How to Weather the Storm

Now my storms, even one worse than my earlier storm, have been different
because of my faith in Jesus.

Let me share a couple of storms that God help me with.

During one particular storm, in one day and on my birthday, I died three times. The first time I didn’t remember since I was on the operating table.

The second time I vaguely remember being jarred awake with what seemed like hundreds of people scurrying all around me. But the third time I saw the heart monitor flat-line and started to drift into darkness.

The details of that day show that God is truly awesome, but that is a testimony for another day.

I did have total faith in Jesus and it’s quite apparent that Jesus and His Father had other plans for me.

Now, how did I weather this storm? After all, I had faith in the superb doctors at Stanford and the head
surgeon who also happens to be the best thoracic surgeon in the world, to work on my particular problem. I had faith and trust in him and his team of five additional hand-picked surgeons.

I also had someone more important on my side. Judy Greer knew I was going into surgery in a couple of days and asked how I was doing. I told her I had the best team of doctors in the world to operate on me.

She reminded me that I also had the best physician ever on my side: Jesus!

So I went into the surgery with complete faith in Jesus and as it turned out Jesus pulled me through.

You see, a month after the surgery I had one of many follow up meetings with the head surgeon. He admitted that he had never seen a body respond the way mine had after my heart stopped and when he was getting ready to call the time of death.

I told him that God and Jesus had guided his hands and I thought his face would split open with a smile
that seemed like it went from ear to ear. This world-renowned surgeon admitted that God had a hand in guiding him.

Listen: Faith in Jesus and His Father out-performed the best surgical team in the world!

There was another storm that Jesus helped me with.

I was laid off about a year and a half ago. For about six hours I was devastated. Then I gave
it to God to take my pain and worry.

I was not able to find work, but I had faith.

Did I blame God for my predicament? No.

Did I fearfully cry out for God to save me? No.

Did I try waking Jesus up with great shouts? Definitely not.

I knew that all my training, knowledge and twenty years experience in information technology and manufacturing wasn’t working with
virtually little response to over 1500 resumes and job applications.

Yet, I still had faith in God.

I had faith in God, through my brother Jesus, that He would take care of me. And He did.

God reached out to me and prodded me to dive head-long into studying the Bible.

I dedicated my life to serving Jesus and His Father.

Here I am today, before you, doing what God has told me to do. I believe He caused me to lose my job in order to accomplish
His Purpose for me.

I have the faith that God will provide for my needs to accomplish His Purpose.

I have shared a few of my storms with you.

Many of you have much larger storms than my storms.

Some of you have storms that are less. But we all have storms.

In fact, we all have something else in common. Just like the fishermen and like the disciples, we may have storms that threaten to take us down to the bottom of the sea and all of our faith in our training and expertise alone will not be enough to pull us through.

There is another thing all of us here have in common: We have Jesus on our side.

Now listen really carefully to this: We just have to have FAITH that Jesus will help us weather our
storms. We WILL get through them with His help.

Listen:
[pause here several seconds for silence, then whisper:] “…and it became perfectly calm.”

Let us pray:

Jesus, we call upon you to calm the storms of ourlives in accordance with you Father’s purpose.

We ask you for strength that we may keep our faith in you and in the Father during times of trouble and
storms.
We ask you for the strength to avoid the temptation to stray from our faith by mere earthly distractions or by Satan and his minions.

Father, our life you created for us here is only temporary and we declare our faith that our rooms in one of your many mansions are awaiting us along with your gift of everlasting life.

Father! Thank you for the most precious gift of all: your Son, Jesus.

We also pray, that if there are any people present that have not yet accepted Jesus as their only Lord and
Savior, for you, Father, to touch their hearts and open their eyes to the testimony of your Word today.